Pausanias' description of Greece, Volume I.

by active approximately 150-175 Pausanias

CHAPTER XXIV.

Meantime Aristomenes, when he refused the leadership of those who were going on the new colony, married his sister Agnagora to Tharyx of Phigalia, and his two eldest daughters to Damothoidas of Lepreum and Theopompus of Heræum. And he himself went to Delphi and consulted the oracle. What answer was returned is not recorded. But Damagetus a native of Rhodes, the King of Ialysus, had also at this time come to consult the oracle as to where he should marry a wife from, and the Pythian Priestess replied that he was to marry the daughter of the noblest of the Greeks. And Aristomenes had a third daughter, and he married her, thinking her father far the noblest Greek of his time. And Aristomenes went to Rhodes with his daughter, and from thence he intended to go to Sardis to Ardys the son of Gyges, and to Ecbatana the royal residence of the Medes to the Court of King Phraortes, but before he could carry out this intention he chanced to die of some illness, so that the fates did not permit him to wreak his vengeance on the Lacedæmonians. And Damagetus and the people of Rhodes built a splendid monument to him, and paid honours to his memory. The traditions about those who are called the Diagoridæ in Rhodes, (who were descended from Diagoras, the son of Damagetus, the son of Dorieus, the son of Damagetus by the daughter of Aristomenes), I have omitted, that I might not appear to have introduced irrelevant matter.

And the Lacedæmonians, when they had made themselves masters of Messenia, shared it out among themselves all but the territory of the Asinæi, and Mothone they gave to the people of Nauplia who had recently been ejected by the Argives.

And the Messenians who were captured at Eira, and compulsorily incorporated among the Helots, revolted again from the Lacedæmonians in the 79th Olympiad, in which the Corinthian Xenophon was victor, and Archimedes Archon at Athens. And they seized the following opportunity. Some of the Lacedæmonians, on a charge for which they were condemned to death, fled to Tænarum as suppliants; and there the Ephors took them from the altar and slew them. And the wrath of Poseidon came upon those Spartans who had violated his rights of sanctuary, and he adjudged the town to be utterly razed to the ground. And it was after this calamity that the Helots who were Messenians revolted and went to Mount Ithome. And the Lacedæmonians sent for several allies to help to subdue them, and among others for Cimon (the son of Miltiades) their friend, of whom they also begged some Athenian troops. But when these Athenian troops came they suspected them as likely to introduce revolutionary ideas among their own men, so in their suspicion they soon sent them home again from Ithome. But when the Athenians observed that suspicion on the part of the Lacedæmonians they were indignant and became friendly to the Argives, and, when those of the Messenians who were besieged at Ithome were allowed to surrender upon conditions, gave Naupactus to them, (having taken it from the Locrians in Ætolia called Ozolæ). And the Messenians were allowed to surrender partly because of the strength of the place, partly because the Pythian Priestess prophesied to the Lacedæmonians that there would be vengeance from Zeus of Ithome if they violated his right of sanctuary. So they were allowed to evacuate the Peloponnese upon conditions for these reasons.

CHAPTER XXV.

And when they got Naupactus, they were not content with the town and region that they had got through the Athenians, but a strong desire came upon them to get a place for themselves by their own valour. And as they knew that the Œniadæ, who had a rich soil in Acarnania, had been for all time at variance with the Athenians, they marched against them. And being not superior in point of numbers, but far superior in respect to bravery, they won a victory over them, and shut them up in their fort and blockaded them. And the Messenians employed every human invention for taking cities, they tried to get over the walls by scaling ladders, and undermined the fort, and bringing up such engines as they could get at short notice kept battering away at the walls. And those in the town, fearing that if the town was taken they would be undone, and their wives and children sold into slavery, preferred to surrender upon conditions. And for about a year the Messenians occupied the town and enjoyed the produce of the country, but the year after the Acarnanians gathering a force together from all their towns planned a march upon Naupactus. But they changed their minds about this when they saw that their march would be through the country of the Ætolians, who were always hostile to them, and at the same time they expected the Naupactians had a navy, as indeed they had, and as they were masters of the sea it would not be possible to subdue them with a land army. So they changed their plan with alacrity, and marched against the Messenians at Œniadæ. And they began to lay siege to the town: for they did not suppose that so few men would come to such a pitch of recklessness as to sally out and fight against them. And the Messenians had got together a store of corn and other provisions, expecting a long siege: but they thought before the blockade commenced they would have one good fight in the open, and as they were Messenians, who had only been inferior to the Lacedæmonians in luck not in courage, they would not be frightened at this mob that had come from Acarnania. And the Athenians remembered the action at Marathon, how thirty myriads of Medes were slain by less than 10,000. So they determined to fight the Acarnanians, and the battle was fought as follows. The Acarnanians inasmuch as they were far more numerous easily surrounded the Messenians, except where the gates at the back of the Messenians checked them, and the men on the walls stoutly defended their comrades. Here they could not be surrounded. But both their flanks were sore pressed by the Acarnanians, and they shot at them from all sides. And the Messenians being a compact body, wherever they made a general attack on the Acarnanians, threw the enemy’s ranks into confusion, and killed and wounded many, yet could not bring about a complete rout. For wherever the Acarnanians observed that their lines were pierced by the Messenians, there they brought up large detachments of men, and beat the Messenians back by sheer force of numbers. And whenever the Messenians were unsuccessful in an attack, and tried in some other place to break the Acarnanian line, the same result would follow. At whatever point they attacked they produced confusion and something like a rout, but the Acarnanians came swarming up, and so the Messenians had very unwillingly to retire. And the struggle being very evenly poised till night came on, and the attacking force of the Acarnanians being augmented the following evening from several towns, a regular blockade of the Messenians commenced. And they had no fear that the town would be taken by storm, either by the Acarnanians getting over the walls, or by their being compelled to desert their garrison duty. But by the 8th month all their supplies were consumed. To the Acarnanians they jeeringly cried out that their provisions would last even a ten years’ siege: but about the time of first sleep they quietly slipped out of Œniadæ, and being compelled to fight their way through directly the Acarnanians got to know of this flitting, lost about 300 but killed a still greater number of the enemy, and most of them succeeded in cutting their way through, and by the assistance of the Ætolians who were friendly to them got safe to Naupactus.

CHAPTER XXVI.

And from this time forward their hostility to the Lacedæmonians increased, as they notably shewed in the war between the Peloponnesians and Athenians. For they made Naupactus a base against the Peloponnese, and when the Spartans were cut off at Sphacteria some Messenian bowmen from Naupactus assisted the Athenians. But after the reverse of the Athenians at Ægos-potamoi, the Lacedæmonians being masters of the sea drove the Messenians from Naupactus, and some went into Sicily to their kinsmen at Zancle and Rhegium, but most to Libya to the Euesperitæ, who being hard pressed in war by some of the neighbouring barbarians invited in the Greeks as colonists. To them went most of the Messenians under Comon, who had been their General at Sphacteria.

And a year before the Theban victory at Leuctra, the god foretold to the Messenians their return to the Peloponnese. For the priest of Hercules (they say) in Messene at the Sicilian Strait saw in a dream Hercules Manticlus invited in a friendly way by Zeus to Ithome. And among the Euesperitæ Comon dreamt that he had dealings with his dead mother, and that subsequently his mother came to life again. And he hoped as the Athenians were now powerful at sea that they would be restored to Naupactus: and the dream seemed to indicate that Messene would revive. And no long time after came to the Lacedæmonians at Leuctra the disaster that had long been fated: for the concluding words of the oracle given to Aristodemus the king of the Messenians were,

“Do as fate bids: woe comes to all in turn.”